Writing For Article Directories - Top 3 Tips (It's Easy When You Know How!)

It's important to remember that when writing articles for submission to article directories, the higher quality article directories will firstly screen your article to ensure it's in line with their guidelines.

It's therefore vital you write articles with such guidelines in mind - there's little point spending your time and effort writing an article, only to find it was declined because of something you could have easily avoided.

While most article directories have different guidelines in place, they also have some main commonalities, and this article highlights the three main pitfalls to beware of.

1. It's the headline, stupid!

The headline is one of the most important elements of your article. It's often the deciding factor between whether someone reads your article or not. But what many people don't realize is that a poor title can get your article declined before the article itself is read or reviewed - even when the article itself might be good quality.

Here's what you should always avoid:

- Don't put your article title IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS! (There's no need to shout at your reader - it will turn them away, not grab their attention)

- Don't add a period at the end of your title. There's no need for it, it can make the article appear unprofessional, and can often get your article deleted by a potential publisher before they even look at the article proper.

- Don't put your title in quotation marks. Publishers don't generally like it, and many have "instant decline" rules against the practice.

- Don't add multiple question marks or exclamation marks in or at the end of your title!!!??? It's seen as aggressive, comes across as low quality, and will prevent publication of your article on quality sites.

2. Write to benefit your readers - not to promote your business

Many people new to article marketing try to turn their article into a promotional piece for their business.

That's not how article marketing works, and is an easy way to ensure your article never gets published.

Instead, while you can promote your business in the article bylines or resource box, the article itself must offer something of value to the reader - i.e. useful and valuable information - that would make the publisher willing to publish the article.

In effect, their 'payment' to you for the use of your content, is the publication of your resource box, where you promote your business and link back to your site.

3. Don't Keyword-Stuff

Apart from being ineffective for SEO, keyword-stuffing makes your article come across very poorly. Immediately, the publisher knows you're writing to benefit yourself, not to benefit their readers. Their interest, of course, is in adding value for their readers, and you'll win by providing content in line with their needs - not by writing to try to gain at their expense.

If you need to include particular keywords in your article or title, just incorporate them naturally, using natural language, adapting the keyword if necessary to suit the sentence it's in (eg. 'flight to London', not 'flight London'). This actually makes it more effective for SEO too - search engines like Google are becoming increasingly adept at sniffing out unnatural language, and will de-value content where they find it (not to mention publishers rejecting at first glance before it even gets that far).

Follow the three tips provided to you in this article, and you'll greatly increase your own chances of publication on quality article directories, simply because you'll be providing the type of content they are looking for.